Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Eric from the one you Feed with
Speaker 1: another mini episode, and this week I want to talk
Speaker 1: about the benefits of having a routine. A lot of
Speaker 1: us have a negative connotation of routine. I think we
Speaker 1: sometimes confuse it with authority, or with boredom or monotony
Speaker 1: or living a lifeless existence. But really it's not any
Speaker 1: of those things if it's a routine of our choosing.
Speaker 1: And the main reason that that a routine is so
Speaker 1: powerful is that it allows us to spend our energy
Speaker 1: not so much on deciding what we're gonna do, but
Speaker 1: on actually doing things. So there was a pretty popular
Speaker 1: article in The New York Times a while ago that
Speaker 1: talked about the idea of decision fatigue, and it was
Speaker 1: really around the idea that every time we make a decision,
Speaker 1: it it takes something from us, and we have a
Speaker 1: threshold beyond which a certain point we don't make good decisions.
Speaker 1: We interviewed Tony Stubblebine from LIFT. I talked with him
Speaker 1: the other night. I'm not sure when it will air,
Speaker 1: but he talked about very similar idea of the idea
Speaker 1: of a cognitive budget. We've got so much ability to
Speaker 1: make decisions and think things through, and then when that
Speaker 1: goes away, we start to really slide into making um
Speaker 1: bad decisions. We pick the easiest path, we fall into
Speaker 1: old habits. So the benefit, one of the big benefits
Speaker 1: of routine is that those are a bunch of decisions
Speaker 1: I don't have to make. So for example, if I
Speaker 1: don't know what time I'm going to get out of bed,
Speaker 1: then I might make a whole bunch of decisions before
Speaker 1: I even get started. Should I get out of bed
Speaker 1: right now? No? Not right now? When should I get
Speaker 1: out of bed? I don't know? Should I get out
Speaker 1: of bed now? No? Not right now? When should I
Speaker 1: get out of bed right? And this just goes on,
Speaker 1: and that's just a draining thing. Um. You know, if
Speaker 1: I wanted to develop an exercise habit, if I don't
Speaker 1: know what days I work out, then every day I'm
Speaker 1: thinking should I work out today? Am I gonna work
Speaker 1: out today? Oh? If I work out, what am I
Speaker 1: gonna do? Am I gonna do weight training? Am I
Speaker 1: gonna do running? So again, these are all these decisions
Speaker 1: that are draining that cognitive budget. It's exhausting to keep
Speaker 1: having to make decisions over and over, deciding what to
Speaker 1: do and when where's this out? And if for a
Speaker 1: lot of the folks who listen to the show, there's
Speaker 1: an element of depression. And one of the key indicators
Speaker 1: of or key symptoms of depression is this inability to
Speaker 1: make decisions. So if I am battling with that and
Speaker 1: I don't have routines, then I very quickly become overwhelmed
Speaker 1: and it's easy to not do a whole lot. Routine
Speaker 1: is shown to pretty consistently help with confidence promoting stability
Speaker 1: in our lives. It's the same reason that things becoming
Speaker 1: a habit is so valuable because we don't have to
Speaker 1: think about it a whole lot, we don't have to
Speaker 1: negotiate about it. It's the same thing with routine. Once
Speaker 1: we set a routine, we can have a plan in
Speaker 1: place and we don't have to debate it all the time.
Speaker 1: One of the guests we had, and I think I've
Speaker 1: talked about this other times, um Joel Zaslowsky was talking
Speaker 1: about this idea of I make a plan and then
Speaker 1: when I hit that moment and I'm supposed to go
Speaker 1: do this thing, even when my mood is telling me, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think I feel like it. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this, He goes with the part of him
Speaker 1: that made the plan, the old Joel he called it,
Speaker 1: that made that plan, And a routine is a very
Speaker 1: similar thing. We've we've spent the time to think about
Speaker 1: what's important to us, what we want to do, the
Speaker 1: things that we know are good for us, and then
Speaker 1: we don't have to re engage in the debate around
Speaker 1: those things all the time. Once you've got a routine
Speaker 1: in place, then the mental processes that make that behavior
Speaker 1: happen start to take place a lot more automatically, and
Speaker 1: we save time and energy and stress by sort of
Speaker 1: doing that mental to and froing of making a decision.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is that instead of kind
Speaker 1: of having to create each day from scratch, these routines
Speaker 1: can create a framework of all these small decisions that
Speaker 1: we don't have to make, so we can spend more
Speaker 1: time on what matters. So what are some things that
Speaker 1: can help us with with building these routines. So I
Speaker 1: think one we talk about all the time on the
Speaker 1: show is start small. You don't need to schedule out
Speaker 1: every minute of every day, uh from now on. But
Speaker 1: it is very helpful, particularly for those people who have
Speaker 1: more time on their hands to schedule more of that
Speaker 1: time so that there is less of that decision and
Speaker 1: it's less likely that that time just gets away from
Speaker 1: us for whatever reason. When I have a lot of
Speaker 1: time on my hands, I find it very difficult. I
Speaker 1: get far less done than when I have less time
Speaker 1: and I m am forced to schedule it better. Second
Speaker 1: would be, you know, let's be specific about what is
Speaker 1: the routine that I want to do. I want to
Speaker 1: work out every day, but more specifically, I want to
Speaker 1: do this specific exercise on this specific day. So the
Speaker 1: more clear we are, the easier it is to act
Speaker 1: on that routine. We don't have to Not only do
Speaker 1: we decide whether we want to do it or not,
Speaker 1: we also don't have to decide what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: Getting support is another big one. Ask for help, Ask
Speaker 1: your friends to encourage you in the routine, ask your
Speaker 1: family to encourage. There's applications out there, um Lift, It's
Speaker 1: called it's now called coach dot me. It's an iPhone app.
Speaker 1: You can get a lot of online support, but get
Speaker 1: get support where you can and then plan for success
Speaker 1: and and an interview that will be coming out soon.
Speaker 1: Another one where we talked with a woman about the
Speaker 1: process of thinking through the obstacles that stand in our
Speaker 1: way in advance so that we encounter them we know
Speaker 1: how to get over them. And then this last one,
Speaker 1: which is sort of paradoxical, is to really be flexible. So, yes,
Speaker 1: routine is important, but we also have to be flexible
Speaker 1: or we run into what we've talked about before, that
Speaker 1: all or nothing mentality, which is like either I do
Speaker 1: this thing every time perfectly, or I don't do it
Speaker 1: at all. And there's gonna be days where we've got
Speaker 1: a routine plan in some thing comes up, and it's
Speaker 1: important to have some flexibility and be able to make
Speaker 1: good decisions about Okay, well today I said I was
Speaker 1: going to do this at noon, but there's this other
Speaker 1: thing going on that I think is important, and I
Speaker 1: can do this thing at another time. To just kind
Speaker 1: of reiterate, I think that the main benefit of of
Speaker 1: building some of these routines in our lives is that
Speaker 1: we don't wear ourselves out having to make decisions about
Speaker 1: a lot of small things, and then we can make
Speaker 1: better decisions about the big things and have much more
Speaker 1: energy to do the things that are important. And it's
Speaker 1: a you know, it reduces anxiety, it reduces stress, and
Speaker 1: it gives us more energy overall. Hopefully that's helpful in
Speaker 1: some way, and we will talk again soon. Thanks bye,